Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[jmdirt]

Re:

Unfortunately it looks like Froome the ****** is in command now..unless he falls. Contador has reached his limits...Quintana doesn't have enough and is already too far off. Nibali is weaker than all the contenders. The French are cooked. Valverde is done. Van Garderen might stay a little closer (maybe 5 or 6 minutes by the end. The races now are for the Polka dot and Green. The rest is ****

I actually think AC will get stronger. He came out of the Giro and rested, then rode easy, and then did a small training camp. The first week of the TdF was still a building phase for him. I hope that Tejay can stay close, and maybe even challenge Froome a bit. I'm not ruling out NQ yet either. VN does look like he missed his target, but who knows, maybe he missed it short and will ride into better form this week. I'm hoping for some exciting racin!!

 

[jmdirt]

I'm glad that Froome said this:

“The guys gave it everything, everyone was really motivated for this team time trial,” said Froome. “Of course we saw Nico Roche struggling a little bit up that final climb but I mean that’s the nature of the team time trial, he put so much in earlier on. We can’t put it down to him struggling on the last climb. That’s just a team effort and today BMC were better than us.”

Too often we see something like Nico struggling and wonder "WTF, he screwed it for Sky", but maybe the reason they went so fast is because of the work he did earlier in the TTT.

Class by Froome.

 

[Andre.J]

Re: Re:

Unfortunately it looks like Froome the ******* is in command now..unless he falls. Contador has reached his limits...Quintana doesn't have enough and is already too far off. Nibali is weaker than all the contenders. The French are cooked. Valverde is done. Van Garderen might stay a little closer (maybe 5 or 6 minutes by the end. The races now are for the Polka dot and Green. The rest is ****

Contador has reached his limits? Based on what?

I base it on his diminishing
strength towards the end of the Giro. And also on his lack of kick up the Muy....and the penultimate stage where we usually see the great Contador put in an effort for the stage victory. As sad as it is for me to say...but I think he has reached his limit. I just haven't seen his fire in the whole first week....that being said...I hope I am dead wrong and he comes back to crush that little Froome weasel.

 

[SeriousSam]

 

[SeriousSam]

Re:

@SeriousSam what stages do you think are most likely to be won by Froome if you had to rank them?

IMO:

PSM
PdB
Alpe
Toussuire
Mende
Pra-Loup

I'm going to have to look at the profiles again, but I agree with PSM being the most likely and PdB second. Alpe is an interesting one, but I agree as well because he'll want to win that stage more than any other, even if his edge might have been dulled by that point. After winning Mont V in the yellow jersey, he'll want to repeat the feat the day before Paris, at the even more iconic Alpe.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Unfortunately it looks like Froome the ******* is in command now..unless he falls. Contador has reached his limits...Quintana doesn't have enough and is already too far off. Nibali is weaker than all the contenders. The French are cooked. Valverde is done. Van Garderen might stay a little closer (maybe 5 or 6 minutes by the end. The races now are for the Polka dot and Green. The rest is ****

Contador has reached his limits? Based on what?

Contador is still in the race of course but Nibali is on the edge. Quintana and Froome look to be the freshest so far of the big four. TJVG will be hoping for some sign of weakness as he is the obvious threat to the podium if he can avoid having a bad day in the mountains.

 

[Jagartrott]

Another confirmation that Froome is nervous: Démare said that Froome exchanged some shoulders with him on the sprint stage on Friday and badmouthed him - 2 km from the finish. Froome has upset quite a number of people by now.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Another confirmation that Froome is nervous: Démare said that Froome exchanged some shoulders with him on the sprint stage on Friday and badmouthed him - 2 km from the finish. Froome has upset quite a number of people by now.

Steven de Jongh said he had heard the same from multiple riders, Froome will try crazy tricks to get into a safe position (ironic) like elbowing and shouldering. If he stays this nervous, it'll be a miracle if he doesn't crash

 

[SkyTears]

lol, the tears and wishful thinking
this is nothing in peleton
if would be Bouhanii would be banned by rider assoc by now lolz

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Another confirmation that Froome is nervous: Démare said that Froome exchanged some shoulders with him on the sprint stage on Friday and badmouthed him - 2 km from the finish. Froome has upset quite a number of people by now.

Steven de Jongh said he had heard the same from multiple riders, Froome will try crazy tricks to get into a safe position (ironic) like elbowing and shouldering. If he stays this nervous, it'll be a miracle if he doesn't crash

That's called riding a bike.

 

[cellardoor]

I'm very curious to see how the mighty market responds to the rest day.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

Like the "Froome can't do cobbles" and the "Froome can't do hilltops" hypotheses, now disgraced, Froome necessarily having bad days, peaking for the first week and being crap in the third week too are instances of wishful thinking.

The "Froome can't descend" myth is still out there though.

 

[ray j willings]

Has anyone measured Froomes wing span, elbow - elbow ? the UCI must have a rule. No wonder Bertie could not get round him...

 

[rick james]

Of course he was nervous in the first week, they were talking it up as 9 spring classics, you had to fight to get into good positions and now Froome does that takes the lead and folk are not happy about it.....I doubt he'll be nervous now because we are about to hit the mountains

 

[rick james]

Just think how fast he would be if he was to tuck his elbows in

 

[Jagartrott]

Re: Re:

That's called riding a bike.

Démare sounded genuinely, well, shocked. This wasn't on km 80 or something, this was in full sprint preparation, a GC guy coming to exchange blows with a sprinter.

 

[ray j willings]

Re:

Just think how fast he would be if he was to tuck his elbows in

His legs would not go round if he did that.

 

[del1962]

Re: Re:

That's called riding a bike.

Démare sounded genuinely, well, shocked. This wasn't on km 80 or something, this was in full sprint preparation, a GC guy coming to exchange blows with a sprinter.

From what I read he also was not happy with BMC and Movistar.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Has anyone measured Froomes wing span, elbow - elbow ? the UCI must have a rule. No wonder Bertie could not get round him...

He just blocks off half the road! Berto would have had to ride an additional 15 meters to get around his elbows

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Of course he was nervous in the first week, they were talking it up as 9 spring classics, you had to fight to get into good positions and now Froome does that takes the lead and folk are not happy about it.....I doubt he'll be nervous now because we are about to hit the mountains

Don't you think it is a bit odd that others view him as a crash hazard, because of the way he is trying to avoid crashes? Surely someone on his team should have seen how counter-productive his behavior was?

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

That's called riding a bike.

Démare sounded genuinely, well, shocked. This wasn't on km 80 or something, this was in full sprint preparation, a GC guy coming to exchange blows with a sprinter.

Sounds like Demare needs to toughen up then. With the way the rules are GC guys have to be at the front (ok, maybe not that far forward!) and as a sprinter he's going to have to deal with it.

I'd guess it's more that Demare is not seen as a top line sprinter so maybe isn't let through the pack as easily as guys like Cav, Greipel, Sagan etc. and he gets frustrated.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Has anyone measured Froomes wing span, elbow - elbow ? the UCI must have a rule. No wonder Bertie could not get round him...

He just blocks off half the road! Berto would have had to ride an additional 15 meters to get around his elbows

If Berto times his bobbing he could duck under those wings!

 

[harryh]

Re: Re:

That's called riding a bike.

Démare sounded genuinely, well, shocked. This wasn't on km 80 or something, this was in full sprint preparation, a GC guy coming to exchange blows with a sprinter.

Sounds like Demare needs to toughen up then. With the way the rules are GC guys have to be at the front (ok, maybe not that far forward!) and as a sprinter he's going to have to deal with it.

I'd guess it's more that Demare is not seen as a top line sprinter so maybe isn't let through the pack as easily as guys like Cav, Greipel, Sagan etc. and he gets frustrated.

Exactly. And either haven't hear any whining by Cav, Greipel, Sagan etc.

 

[DBotero]

Re:

Another confirmation that Froome is nervous: Démare said that Froome exchanged some shoulders with him on the sprint stage on Friday and badmouthed him - 2 km from the finish. Froome has upset quite a number of people by now.

I'm thinking that Demare should better concentrate on his sprinting abilities which are lacking at the moment and leave Froome alone.I like Demare but crying about this is hilarious considering he's a sprinter.He should be happy that was Froome and not Renshaw.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

That's called riding a bike.

Démare sounded genuinely, well, shocked. This wasn't on km 80 or something, this was in full sprint preparation, a GC guy coming to exchange blows with a sprinter.

Sounds like Demare needs to toughen up then. With the way the rules are GC guys have to be at the front (ok, maybe not that far forward!) and as a sprinter he's going to have to deal with it.

I'd guess it's more that Demare is not seen as a top line sprinter so maybe isn't let through the pack as easily as guys like Cav, Greipel, Sagan etc. and he gets frustrated.

But it's not just Demare who has complained about it, many riders are apparently a bit fed up with Froome and Sky's dangerous riding.